


Still Alive

by Webtrinsic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Apologies, Brother-Sister Relationships, Death, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First and Last Meetings, Flashbacks, Forgiveness, Goodbyes, Guilt, Heart-to-Heart, Hugs, Hurt Ahsoka Tano, Hurt Kanan Jarrus, Kanan Jarrus Has PTSD, Loneliness, Loth-Wolves (Star Wars), Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Platonic Relationships, Protective Ahsoka Tano, Protective Kanan Jarrus, Scarification, Survivor Guilt, The World Between Worlds (Star Wars), Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28737069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: Ahsoka's death had devastated him, so when his time comes to become one with the force; Kanan is taken to the world between worlds for one last conversation.
Relationships: Kanan Jarrus & Ahsoka Tano, Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Kudos: 33





	Still Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Ahsoka and Kanan (Din also) are my favorite star wars characters, and I was like bro i need kanan and ahsoka to talk because i know it hurt him when he thought she died so here this is because i love them so much
> 
> also i was listening to still alive by lisa miskovsky and thought of this, also this references Dave's leaked dialogue of Ahsoka's meeting with Bendu

Kanan Jarrus was no stranger to loneliness. For some long pitiful years he’d sought to fill the emptiness in his heart with alcohol and in the arms of women he wouldn’t even see the morning after. He lived with the memories of the life he had surrounded by the Jedi in their temple, and even though attachment was forbidden, there normally was never an unhelpful face or anyone unwilling to spend their time by his side.

Now they’re dead, and although he’d been taught since he was a mere child no one was ever really gone, they were to him. His memories were either so sharp that they stung, or so blurred and pulled to the back of his mind, he was missing some of the most important peoples faces.

He can’t remember his master’s visage, he knows if there were a picture, or painting, or even if he somehow had a vision or nightmare, he’d know who she was. But whenever he tries to picture her on his own, there’s nothing more than the sound of her voice desperately and fearfully telling him to run.

If his memories failing him weren’t bad enough, he’d dug his own grave when he’d disconnected himself from the force. Now that he calls back to it, there are layers he must overcome, some he isn’t sure he ever will again.

And because of that separation, he doesn’t feel them. He tries, he hopes their spirits will look his way, but they don’t. As if they don’t want to speak with him, guide him, and he cannot blame them, because he ran when he should have fallen and died by his Master’s side.

Eventually he’d found warmth, or more accurately she’d found him. Hera had found him, pulled him from the frigid and isolating loneliness, and although it was the best thing to ever happen to him, still there was a piece of him frozen.

Ezra, a force sensitive child, who looks at him acts as a pick, chipping at that ice, but it’s not enough to topple the glacier within. Then all at once, at the revelation that Fulcrum is someone like him, someone who survived the order, someone with training and knowledge. Someone more capable than him, the ice shatters and he finds himself with an older sister.

Or at least, that’s what it feels like. And considering the look in Ahsoka’s eyes and the warmth she provides with her protection, guidance, and relief; he knows she feels the same.

He takes her into his odd little family, and suddenly in every aspect there is nothing but blazing heat.

* * *

Now all he knows is inferno, red gruelling inferno that he sees even while his eyes no longer work. Maul’s attack is never ceasing even though the battle is over, and his head is on fire. But his heart freezes at the death of Ahsoka Tano.

There’s nothing but _what if’s_ and _maybe’s_ running through his head, and there is guilt tugging at his heels, wanting to pull him into nothing. He’d rather be numb than go throughout the rest of his life with his face on fire and his heart freezer burned.

There’d been a death in his family, and it’s effectively pulled him back. To the days where he wanted to smother himself in liquor and take out his anger and the unjustness of his reality by smashing the faces of other bar patrons with his fist.

Hera is who saves him, she always does, and-there’s a lesson at the temple. One Aayla Secura had preached wholeheartedly, “Do not lose a thousand lives just to save one,” the inquisitor sit’s in the back of his mind, and he’s a little jealous that Hera hadn’t needed to learn that in the way he did.

Except maybe he never had. No. He never had. If he had he wouldn’t be internally bargaining that it should have been him, or thousands of others that should have died in Ahsoka’s place; If he had he wouldn’t be so blase faire about risking everything for Hera.

He meditates, and there’s something in the force, it’s wrong and right as if it’s being rewritten right under his nose. Bendu’s laughter clouds his mind, and when he squeezes his useless eyes shut, he swears he hears Ahsoka’s voice speaking with the being.

Asking if she surely will die, and him responding that it didn’t know that. As if maybe she really would live, or more accurately did. That explosion killed her, at least, that’s what he’d believed.

There’s no way of knowing if he’s wrong because the force, although clearer and clearer everyday, won’t show his pseudo older sister’s force signature to him. He has no other choice than to believe she’s gone, and he has no other choice to admit he’s at least a little at fault.

When Hera is taken, the force tumbles and that feeling he got when he heard Bendu and Ahsoka talk throughout the force returns, he believes he will die, and if not that, change is upon him.

The least he can do is tell Ezra now to stay sharp because his all-consuming love for Hera could endanger them. Could endanger him. It could destroy him so utterly and completely, and he loves her enough to be okay with it.

He’s been through so much in life, and he isn’t afraid to embrace his own end. He’d been ready since those clones pointed their blasters in his direction as a child. He isn’t sure if this is the end, but it’s something close and whatever it is, Kanan Jarrus Jedi Knight is ready for it.

* * *

He holds back the oncoming wall of gruelling flames, the force flaring up from within, filling him and allowing him to keep the promise he made to Hera not long ago. His vision and the color in his eyes returning along with his full and unhindered connection with the force.

His eardrums pop at the sound of howls, and as he turns to push the love of his life and his family to safety, from beneath the flames a portal opens and swarms him before the flames could try to lick at his skin.

The muted black and white world he is thrust into is easy on his eyes. Dozens and dozens of portals are around him, displaying moments he’d forgotten or tried to. Showing a past that bit at his core and a future he was and wasn’t supposed to live. 

And it’s only then when he looks across the row, the place sounding off as he walks creating rivets, that he sees a portal with Morai sat atop. In the portal itself is Ahsoka, albeit, not the Ahsoka he knows.

She is young, _at most_ she is only twenty, and she’s embalmed in blue armor with the heart of Mandalore displayed prominently on her chest. She’s sitting alone, in the back of a shuttle, her head in her hands, and he doesn’t know why Morai wants him to step in, but slowly but surely, as if no time is actually passing, he walks through the portal and nearly startles her from her seat.

Her white brow is furrowed, and he sees her hands move to her hips as if reaching for her sabers which evidently aren’t there. He wonders why he never asked her how she came to find her white ones.

Morai perches on his shoulder, and immediately she calms, her eyes moving past him to the world between worlds behind him, and suddenly those eyes are not the same as they were seconds ago, they are the solid all knowing eyes of Fulcrum.

This is a goodbye, and an apology, and the both of them know it. Some part of her knows him too, and she cautiously peaks over her shoulder to make sure Bo-Katan won’t emerge from the cockpit before she takes his hand and they walk back into the world between worlds.

The minute she makes contact she extends her presence and he extends his own, they exchange the hell they’ve been through, and Ahsoka is plagued with what is to come with no way of stopping it because as much as he wished he had all the answers, he does not.

Tears sprinkle down her cheeks, and while his own eyes have healed his scar and tear ducts have not, so he can’t cry or mourn with her. Kanan knows why he’s here, and she accepts the hug he tentatively tugs her into.

He’s here to help stave off the cold, “You’re not alone,” he doesn’t say it lightly, and his hold as he tethers her to him is protective. She’d been so strong for him, it’s his time to return the favor.

The togruta’s arms tighten around his middle, as if she’s afraid to let go. So he doesn’t let her, and buries his face in the tips of her montrals. There’s still a rock in his gut, one that needs to be turned to gravel, and there’s only one way to do that.

Taking a step back, the two stay close, and she looks up at him with watery eyes. Trying to be discreet as she takes in the scar marring his face, not with disgust or pity, simply taking it in as if it's always been a part of him. 

He hates to shatter that illusion for her, but he must or this cruel universe will do it for her.

“You died Ahsoka, I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you,” he sobs, dropping to his knees, looking up at her with pleading eyes. He’s undeserving of her forgiveness but he’s almost afraid to die without it. 

The togruta lowers herself onto her own knees, her tangerine hands gently moving to cup his face, her thumbs running over his scar since there’s no tears for her to wipe away.

The force pulls at her, and this place calls to her. Morai’s presence alone attests to that, and for now it shows her the way. Pulling Kanan to his feet, the two walk throughout the world between worlds in silence.

Ahsoka bearing witness to their friendship, their younger brother and older sister type dynamic, the ways he included her in his little family. She falter’s at the sight of the burning factory, where he burns, and she follows her conscious until she finds the right place.

The one of her, walking away from the broken remains, her arm around her middle, calling out, “May the force be with you Ezra Bridger,” but she’s alive, and the relief that comes from the fact that she’s alive is immense. The rock in his gut is now a pebble, there is still the lingering guilt she had to fight alone, but her death no longer hangs above his head.

Ahsoka is alive and she’ll protect Ezra, and she’ll be able to keep Hera and his unborn child in check. Meaning Kanan could die in peace, he was not alone, and neither would she ever be. They tremble at the sound of the loth wolves howling, and she smiles clearly at his relief.

“Thank you,” he’s not expecting her to say that, in fact it should be him saying it, but even while years younger, Ahsoka is forever the wiser and more forgiving of the two.

“For what?”

“For being there for me, for allowing me to be apart of your family,” she looks back towards his fiery death, “For coming to me now in your last few moments to let me know I’m not alone,”  _ when the worst is to come. _

“Thank you for doing the same,”

A smile pulls at her lips, and the two dread this moment’s ending. But even in a world between worlds, their time has run out. Saddened tears drip from her eyes, and he gives her one last hug and then a nod before he heads back towards his doom with a cocky grin that near completely hides his anticipation. 

She cannot watch, in fact she refuses too.

“May the force be with you,” he didn’t say his name, and although she heard the green twi-lek scream _ Kanan _ , she knew that face. Although it’s older and thinner than what she’d seen here in his past during saber practice, she knows his name.

“Caleb Dume,”

Morai tweets and lands on her extended arm, cooing sadly at the loss of a member of their family. Ahsoka returns to the shuttle, wiping her eyes with her free hand, and straightening her back.

The world between worlds closes, and then they land. The ramp descends, R2 approaches, and she caresses his casing with fondness. Looking up at her master with all too knowing eyes. She knows now this is the end, but she is not alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


End file.
